


One Time he Called and Four Times he Didn't Need To

by pluie



Category: The Skeleton Twins (2014)
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Caring, F/M, Gen, I REGRET NOTHING, M/M, Panic Attacks, Suicide mention, Twins, abusive mother kind of, and I tortured him, i love Milo sm, man im horrible I'm so sorry Milo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-24 02:56:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8354170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pluie/pseuds/pluie
Summary: After Maggie attempts suicide, she moved in with Milo to sort her life out. She did, very quickly. She moved back to New York. And that left Milo. He's confused to why his sister's suicide attempt is affecting him more than it is her. He kept everything on the down low, how he didn't feel himself and especially the anxiety until a night he calls her. It was an accident. But Maggie swoops in to try and piece her brother together again, like she did before.





	1. The Call

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!  
> I went overboard in Claustrophobia and I went overboard here!  
> Enjoy!

Maggie didn't know someone had called her until her phone rang the third time. 

It was Milo. Calling at two o'clock in the morning. He had left three messages, each three minutes long. The cut off point. She pushed herself up in bed, moving her sheets to cover her legs once they hit the cool air. She struggled with her phone, trying to turn the volume up to listen to the messages. She placed her phone against her ear.

"First message from: Milo Dean, at 1:57am: 'Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, hi, uh, I'm- I'm freaking out. I can't, uh, I had a dream- nightmare more like it and uh-'" Maggie's face creased with concern. Her brother's voice was shaking. "'And you actually died and uh Lance was there and I thought it would be fine cause he's a fucking idiot and i don't listen to him but he kept saying it was my fault and-'" He took a breath, it was audibly shaky. "'He kept, he kept yelling saying that I ruined your marriage and you were just there in the pool and you were dead and- and then dad was there, and I know that can't be real but fuck everything was so real and now I can't remember if you're alive or not and I keep remembering running into the pool and I can't lift you up and-'" The message cut off. 

She fumbled with the phone, trying to click the next message.

"Second message from: Milo Dean, at 2:00am: 'Maggie, oh for the love of God, please pick up the phone. I can't- I don't- fuck. I'm afraid I'm going to drop my phone I can't hold it my hands- my hands are shaking like they did the day dad died and the day you told on me for being with Rich and I can't breathe-'" There was a gasp, tight and scared. "'Maggie, one of my fish died yesterday and I almost fucking broke down. I saw and I-'" There was a pause. "'Maggie, please, please, pick up the phone. All I can see is you lying in the pool and I can't save you because you're dead and I'm so terrified it's true, I can't remember-'" The second message ended. 

"Shit, Milo." She whispered, clicking the third message. 

"Third message from: Milo Dean, at 2:03am: 'I can't breathe. My hands are, fuck, they're shaking so much and I feel like I'm going to die. I must be having a heart attack-'" He let's out a very forced laugh. "'If this is what dying feels like I don't ever want to. But shit, are you alive? I can't remember and I think you might be dead, but you might not be so I'm holding on to that maybe. Come on, Maggie. I didn't wake up from the dream, something woke me up and I'm so thankful it did because I cannot-'" The final message ended. 

She had an incoming call. Milo.

"Milo?" 

"Oh fucking thank god." He breathed. 

"Milo, oh my god, I just listened to the messages-" 

"Fuck, you're alive." His voice was still shaky and his breathing erratic but there was evident relief. 

"Are you okay?" There was a scoff and a sour laugh.

"Yeah, I'm fucking great." Maggie blinked, suddenly angry. She didn't want to deal with his snarky humor, it was to early and she was honestly concerned. 

"Well, maybe I'll hang up then-"

"No!" He exclaimed, then a few moments of silence later, "No." Then a second later. "No." 

"Well, then answer like you aren't a smart ass." There was the beginning of a protest but she continued. "Are you okay?" 

"Sure." He sighed.

"Milo." She said sternly. 

"Fucking fine." He said. Though Maggie couldn't tell he was rubbing a hand up and down his face, strewn across his couch. "No. I'm obviously not. I called my twin sister in the middle of a panic attack at two in the morning. Do you think I'm okay?" 

Maggie didn't respond. 

"I nearly cried when I found out my fish was dead yesterday. I-" He sighed. "No. I'm not okay." Then a forced happy voice: "But, dear sister, how are you?" 

"Wha- Milo no. Don't change the subject." Maggie's tiredness was forgotten. They needed to talk about it. But she couldn't do it when he was right off of a panic attack. She needed him to calm down first. "Milo. You can't just ignore this. It's not healthy."

"Oh, you think?" He was sarcastic. "You ignored everything as well and here I am imagining your suicide." His voice became pinched at the end of the sentence. 

"What about that lady that I helped you sign up for?" He rubbed his face again, switching his phone to the other hand. 

"The therapist chick?" He asked. "Worse than Mortimer." 

"What, does she make you write journals?" He scoffed. 

"No. She wanted me to take a video of myself when I felt distressed." Maggie laughed, loudly and wholeheartedly. 

"Really?" She asked in disbelief. She knew the laughter and looseness would calm him down.

"Yeah, so I now have, like, four videos of me just sitting on my couch, uh, mm.." He faltered. "Like-" 

"You don't have to tell me." He cleared his threat. 

"Yeah." A silence. "Yeah." 

"But, do you go and talk to her?" Milo was bobbing his knee up and down, eyes trailing around his apartment. 

"I- uh. I guess.." He said. "I don't go to every one-" Maggie feels another rush of anger. She yells. 

"Milo!" He takes a sharp breath. "Sorry, sorry." This time Maggie rubs her face. 

"She- um." He cleared his throat. "She likes to talk about dad and mom and Rich and you and not the good stuff." His voice is shaky again. "She thinks that talking about everything and, like, provoking everything is good. And-" A trembling breath. "And I thought I could talk about it and all, but- I don't know what happened but-" 

"Oh Milo." She sighed. 

"We have a phone session the other day and I hung up on her because I started to freak out." 

"Oh honey." She wished she was there with him, to comfort him. 

"I tried to take a video but I couldn't turn the camera on." Milo bit the fingernail on his left thumb. Man, he hadn't done that since high school. 

"Do you want me to come out and stay with you a little while?" Milo swallowed hard. Big decision.

"I don't want to inconvenience you-" Twin talk for: 'yes, I do really want you to come' but also: 'that would be embarrassing oh gosh you can say no'. 

"I'll be there by the end of the week." Maggie said, not regretting what she had declared. There was a tense silence until Milo spoke. 

"Hyperventilating." 

"What?" 

"On the couch. I have videos of me, just, hyperventilating and biting my nails and-" 

"I'll be there tomorrow." He didn't have time to protest before she hung up.


	2. Television

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Milo thinks watching television would help get his mind off of things. It did not.

Milo was tired. 

Maggie could tell, the guy at the grocery store could tell, his fish could tell, and he could tell. He was just, 'selectively realizing' things. Aka, ignoring it. 

He was just simply watching television when it began. He was watching a show where people were remodeling houses. A bathtub. A pool. It made his throat tighten. He ignored it, picking at the hem of his shirt. Trying to remember the last time he wore it. He couldn't remember, but, then again, he couldn't think straight at all at the moment. 

Maggie was at the store with the grocery guy who knew Milo was tired buying an extra bottle of fish food for the fish who knew he was tired. He changed the channel. A news report about weight lifting. He quickly changed the channel. It landed on a cooking show. He rubbed a hand up and down his face and bit his nails. He had to move to his right thumb because he had bit his left thumb nail down too far and Maggie had painted it with the gross tasting polish. 

He was intently staring at the television screen, chewing his right thumb nail and bobbing his knee when Maggie arrived home with brown paper grocery bags in her arms. His eyes flicked to hers and then back at the television screen. The lady was preparing a sauce for a noodle dish and while he could honestly care less about the type of locally grown peppers she was using, anything was better than just letting the anxiety gnawing at his stomach eat away at him completely. 

"Milo, is something wrong?" He looked over. She stood by the wall, looking at him skeptically. 

"Nope. Fine." He forced his hand away from his face and crossed his legs to try and stop the bouncing but it persisted. It was like how it was when he was reading Marley and Me in the hospital waiting room and damn it, there it was. He thought of sitting there with the weight of guilt resting on his chest. 

He had made his sister, whom he hadn't talked two in ten years, fly from New York to L.A. because he had been stupid and reckless. He didn't want her there, to pity him like everyone had pitied home both when they both turned fifteen. Their first birthday without their father and there was another thought that had never bothered him before. But now it did. 

He bit his fingernail again. 

"Hey, do we have nail polish remover?" He called out. He knew it was better if he kept it on. He didn't even want to bite that finger, but what he if did? He wouldn't be able to just like he wouldn't be looked at the same again by his sister because he tried to kill himself twice. Damn it. 

"Yeah, I think so. Try under the sink." Maggie's voice sounded distant. She was preoccupied enough not to realize why he wanted it in the first place. He pushed himself up from the couch, still ignoring the tight feeling in his chest and how fluttery his breathing felt. He ignored how exhausted he felt. 

He found the acetone and worked the nail polish off of his finger. He washed his hand to rid them of the chemicals and when he was screwing the lid back onto the teal liquid the sharp smell of nail polish remover filled his nose. It reminded him too much of chlorine. His stomach dropped. It made him want to gag. He finished screwing the lid back on and slammed the door of the cabinet. He returned to the couch, where the channel had been switched to the news. 

The news anchor had a stony face. Caring in a fake sort of way. Their mother. They covered the traffic and weather first, then turned to issues like stocks and local news stories. He was biting his right thumbnail when the final story with the 5:30 anchor came on. He appeared on the screen, his face looking more somber than before. He skimmed the headline running across the bottom: 'Local Teen Suicide by Drowning causes Alarm in a Tight Knit Community'. 

He stiffened. 

His leg bobbed and he bit his nail more forcefully, trying to keep his breathing level. He didn't feel like he was getting enough air into his lungs, his breathing felt fragile. Loose, even. His chest felt constricted, it almost hurt. His eyes were glued to the television screen and he attempted to take a calm breath but it was feeble and abrupt. He bit the skin at the tip of his finger. He pulled it out, glanced at it, almost looking offended, and resumed gnawing his fingernail. 

"Milo?" His gaze jumped quickly, eyes wide. "Milo, hey, it's alright." She moved to sit near him. 

She took the remote and turned the television off. She brought hand hand to grab his arm and lower it. 

"Hey, no. Stop." She rested a hand on his jumping leg and settled it. "Look at me." She instructed, as he had closed his eyes. He met her gaze again. 

"Fuck, Maggie. I don't know what's wrong with me." Maggie laced her arms around him, holding him in a hug. 

"Maybe it's because you're an idiot who ignored everything I say." But Maggie saw his eyes flash with something that wasn't amusement and she backtracked. "But, nothing is wrong with you. You're just dealing with it differently than other people." Put on the dental office spiel. When someone would come out with tears in their eyes or puffy, red faces, she knew what to say. 

"But, you're my twin. How could you move past everything so easily?" He paused, tracing his eyes across the room and said more quietly. "It wasn't this hard when dad died." She nodded and took a breath. 

"I'm not sure." Then added with a smirk. "Girls are stronger than boys." His eyes flicked back to her's, a faint smile playing at his lips. There's a long silence. 

"This is weird." She looks at him. 

"What's weird?" She asks, looking at his face. His eyes are downcast again. 

"I-I'm-" He lets out a breath. "You're not supposed to be better at this than I am. I'm the boy, I should move past this easily. I did when dad died. I did when you told them about Rich. I did when I tried it. But now I can't even watch television." His breathing picks up."Nothing every bothered me like it does now. I'm more affected by your suicide attempt than you are." He closes his mouth and swallows hard. He feels bitter but pathetic. 

"I understand, but, it's fine. You'll work through it. We'll work through it." She said. "We can get another doctor if you'd like or we can just try to do it together. It doesn't matter. But we can do it. Together." Milo looked over at his sister and smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you didn't notice, and you probably didn't. The first and second chapter (and the third,) are exactly the same length. 1,169 words. Different number of paragraphs but, the same length.

**Author's Note:**

> No, but, seriously. This is like my favorite movie now and I absolutely love Bill Hader and I didn't know I needed that movie until I watched it. 
> 
> Also I was really upset that no one has written anything for The Skeleton Twins? It is such a great movie and you could expand upon so much. So instead of only three works on AO3 (and I checked a lot of websites,) I now add a fourth.


End file.
